A hard-disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile storage device that is housed in a protective enclosure and stores digitally encoded data on one or more circular disks having magnetic surfaces. When an HDD is in operation, each magnetic-recording disk is rapidly rotated by a spindle system. Data is read from and written to a magnetic-recording disk using a read/write head that is positioned over a specific location of a disk by an actuator. A read/write head uses a magnetic field to read data from and write data to the surface of a magnetic-recording disk. Write heads make use of the electricity flowing through a coil, which produces a magnetic field. Electrical pulses are sent to the write head, with different patterns of positive and negative currents. The current in the coil of the write head induces a magnetic field across the gap between the head and the magnetic disk, which in turn magnetizes a small area on the recording medium.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a head gimbal assembly (HGA). An HGA may also be referred to as a flexure gimbal assembly. HGA 200 comprises a flexure 202 and a load beam 204 having a dimple 206. Based on the implementation, flexure 202 may comprise multiple assembled layers such as a stainless steel layer 202a, also referred to as a “spring layer” due to one of its functional characteristics, coupled with an insulating layer 202b. Flexure 202 may also, but need not, comprise a separate conductor layer. Flexure 202 is movably coupled to the load beam 204 via the gimbal 206 and has freedom of rotation about the dimple axis 210. Because a slider is coupled to a slider attachment platform of flexure 202, the slider likewise has freedom of rotation about dimple axis 210.
The HGA components, such as the flexure 202 and the load beam 204, interact with each other in an environment having very limited mechanical tolerances and clearances. Therefore, the static and dynamic characteristics of the HGA, such as the pitch static attitude (PSA) and the flying attitude (e.g., pitch and roll), respectively, may be mechanically limited because of the tight clearances. Furthermore, customers mandate meeting stringent performance requirements, including operational shock (or “op-shock”) requirements, which generally relate to an HDD's operational resistance to or operational tolerance of a shock event. So once again the limited mechanical clearances associated with the HGA pose a challenge to meeting such requirements.
Any approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.